the value of
internals are understood.

Well might St. Hilaire burst into the panegyric that Buddha "is
the perfect model of all the virtues he preaches ... his life has not
a stain upon it". Well might the sober critic Max Mueller pronounce his
moral code "one of the most perfect which the world has ever known".
No wonder that in contemplating that gentle life Edwin Arnold should
have found his personality "the highest, gentlest, holiest and most
beneficent ... in the history of thought," and been moved to write his
splendid verses. It is twenty-five hundred years since humanity put
forth such a flower: who knows when it did before?

Gautama Buddha, Sakya Muni, has ennobled the whole human
race. His fame is our common inheritance. His Law is the law of
Justice, providing for every good thought, word and deed its fair
reward, for every evil one its proper punishment. His law is in
harmony with the voices of Nature, and the evident equilibrium of the
universe. It yields nothing to importunities or threats, can be
neither coaxed nor bribed by offerings to abate or alter one jot or
tittle of its inexorable course. Am I told that Buddhist laymen
display vanity in their worship and ostentation in their almsgiving;
that they are fostering sects as bitterly as Hindus? So much the
worse for the laymen: there is the example of Buddha and his
Law. Am I told that Buddhist priests are ignorant, idle
fosterers of superstitions grafted on their religion by foreign kings?
So much the worse for the priests: the life of their Divine Master
shames them and shows their unworthiness to wear his yellow robe or
carry his beggar's bowl. There is the Law--immutable--menacing; it
will find them out and punish.

And what shall we say to those of another caste of character--the
humble-minded, charitable, tolerant, religiously aspiring hearts among
the laity, and the unselfish, pure and learned of the priests who know
the Precepts and keep them? The Law will find them out also; and when
the book of each life is written up and the balance struck, every good
thought or deed will be found entered in its proper place. Not one
blessing that ever followed them from grateful lips throughout their
earthly pilgrimage will be found to have been lost; but each will help
to ease their way as they move from stage to stage of Being

UNTO NIRVANA WHERE THE SILENCE LIVES.

* * * * *

THE ADYAR PAMPHLETS

Vol. I